Uncomfortable

Today’s Gospel is one of those passages that most preachers want to avoid. Why? Because it is discomforting. If I were the pastor of a Protestant community who could choose which Bible passages I wanted to preach each Sunday I wouldn’t choose this one. In fact, if I were like Martin Luther, I would probably excise it from the Bible since this was what he did with passages that discomforted him. But as Catholics we read all of Scripture over the course of several years in our Liturgy, and so we Catholics have to grapple with the Scriptures that are given to us by the Church’s Liturgy. So, as always, the Liturgy schools us in humility and also schools us in the faith. It brings us face to face with vital truths.

If we are discomforted by this Gospel passage we should first examine why this is so. Leaving aside the question of demonic disturbance – and Christ assures us that the devil is real and so are demonic influences which is why the Church insists that every diocese has a team of exorcists – Jesus’s response is not what we would expect of him. After all, he doesn’t seem very nice. First, he seemingly ignores the woman. Then, because she is bothering the disciples, they ask him to give in to her. Jesus then tells her he can’t help her since she’s not a Jew, and then he refers to her, a woman, as a ‘house-dog’ which, in our culture, comes across as rather rude! What are we to make of this extraordinary behaviour?

All the scholars agree that the difficulty of this passage virtually guarantees its authenticity, and the Evangelist recorded this incident down carefully and faithfully. So we too ought to pay attention carefully and consider what it tells us about Jesus and our relationship with him. For a passage like this, precisely because it discomforts us, can remove any inauthentic images of Jesus we might have, and so lead us closer to the truth of the Gospel.

My initial observation is that our notion that Jesus must be nice, meaning always inoffensive and eager to please, is being challenged. For we have made an idol of niceness to such an extent that we tend to reject even true statements because we don’t think it’s been nicely packaged. But Jesus is not principally concerned with being nice. Rather, he is good, and thus his concern is to show charity, that is, a genuine concern for the good of the other. And the greatest good for every person is that they should repent of their sin, turn to God, and be saved through faith in him. Salvation, in other words, is Jesus’s concern. Everything he does is directed towards this.

In this particular situation, therefore, it seems to me that Jesus is focussed not just on the Canaanite woman and the deliverance of her daughter. Rather, he uses their situation to teach the Jews of his time, especially the Pharisees whom he had been debating earlier on in this chapter, vital lessons about salvation. Indeed, as this incident happened openly in public, Jesus has vital truths to give to all the onlookers, and we are numbered among those. So, what might these truths be?

Firstly, salvation is a gift. It’s not earned, nor deserved, nor a right. God does not owe us creatures anything since our existence is itself a grace. And God, because he is good and loving, has given us Christians yet another grace: the grace of salvation through faith in Christ for he has come to free and save humanity from its sins. Today’s Gospel, then, expresses the fact that salvation is a gift that is not owed to humanity. Hence Jesus says that deliverance is given only to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel”. In other words, since it is a gift, God chooses to whom he wishes to give it. Why, then, are we shocked? Because at some level maybe we think that the gift of salvation should be automatically universal; that it is owed to us, or that we can earn it. Or maybe we think that Jesus is nice, and niceness means that he should give the woman what she wants. But this isn’t how it works either. No, salvation is not a right but a gift which is why we Catholics come to Mass at least every Sunday and offer the Eucharist – we’re giving thanks to God for his gifts of life, of grace, and receiving the gift of salvation through Christ. For as Jesus taught: “he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” (Jn 6:53).  

Coming to the second point, then: if salvation is God’s gift and he chooses who to give it to, how, then, does he choose who receives the gift? Potentially, salvation is on offer to all people, and this is because God is love. But because God is love, he does not and indeed, cannot, force us to be saved. So salvation is granted to those who desire it, who persist in asking for it, and who show great faith by what they do. This is the second great truth that we must learn from today’s Gospel.

This point was beautifully illustrated by the adult baptism I celebrated just before this Mass. I had the privilege and joy of baptising a woman who, like the woman of the Gospel, had persisted in her desire for baptism, and at last, after decades, she was baptised and confirmed. She will receive Communion for the first time in this Mass and so receive a precious crumb from the Master’s table. But  because none of us are worthy to receive the Lord, nor deserving of salvation, so we’re grateful for every crumb that the Lord gives us. Gratitude and humble thanksgiving is thus what we bring to the Altar every time we come to the Mass. This is why we kneel during the Mass and approach with the Lord with reverence just like the Canaanite woman did.

Hence the Canaanite woman is, for all of us today, an example of persistent faith even in the face of silence, obstacles, and insult. She’s not deterred by a lack of niceness! Such faith and humility is necessary for every disciple. She is also an example of a great desire for salvation. Would we not also, as Christians, do whatever is necessary to be saved? And finally, she is an example of humanity’s need to be free from sin, free from the devil, and indeed, free from the lure of wealth and the transient pleasures of the world. Everyone who asks for baptism, and everyone who wishes to be a follower of Christ must, therefore, do likewise and become like this Canaanite woman.  

This, it seems to me, is what Jesus is teaching us; his concern is for our salvation. So, for the good of the Pharisees who had taken salvation for granted; for the good of the Scribes who had spurned Christ; and therefore also for our good as onlookers today, this Gospel is recounted. The Church’s Liturgy today leads us to consider the super gratuity of God’s gift of salvation, man’s absolute need for this grace, and the persistent faith and ardent desire that man needs in order to receive it. So if today’s Gospel discomforts us and maybe puzzles or even annoys us, this is well and good. For perhaps it is the Holy Spirit stirring us from our existential slumbers and, in his mercy and love, awakening us to his saving grace.